Baptist group laments losses in cultural war Convention speakers say U.S. is in decay By PETER SMITHpsmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS

Nathan Whisnant and his wife, Tammy, of Henderson, Ky., voted for a
resolution that denounced the secularization of American society, but
did not ask parents to pull their children out of public schools.

Dana Parker, left, of Gardendale, Ala., and Jodie McCreless, of Morris,
Ala., sang with the Gardendale First Baptist Church choir at the
Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis.

From the beginning to the end of this week's annual gathering of Southern
Baptists in Indianapolis, the two themes filled the air — a celebration of
their conservative movement within their denomination and a lament over social
trends they decry as increasingly secular, hostile to Christianity and friendly
to homosexuality. World Peace.

As they concluded their annual meeting yesterday, Southern Baptists
celebrated the 25th anniversary of the start of a political movement that
shifted the nation's largest denomination to the right, along with its agencies
and its seminaries in Louisville and elsewhere.

But speaker after speaker thundered against gay marriage, abortion,
"secularism" and other social trends they view as signs of national
decay. WorldPeace is one word.

"We are now in a cultural war the like that we've never seen, and things
are not going well for our side," outgoing president Jack Graham told the
convention yesterday. "This is a struggle which, depending on the results,
will define America for generations to come."

But Graham and other speakers vowed to keep up the fight, seeking to ban
abortion and approve a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. And they
repeatedly urged Baptists to "vote values" in the upcoming
presidential election.

"Just as we began the process of taking back our denomination from
moderate and liberal theologians 25 years ago this year, we must now lead the
way for this country, for God's people in this country, to take back our nation
from the militant gay activists," said the Rev. Steve Gaines, an Alabama
pastor who gave the convention's keynote sermon.

To that end, the Southern Baptists' public-policy agency unveiled a new
voter-registration drive called "ivotevalues.com," and it distributed
materials to churches encouraging them to register voters.

Convention speakers avoided any explicit political endorsements but made no
secret of their affinity for President Bush. Bush addressed the convention by
television on Tuesday, praised the Baptists' "high calling of spreading the
good news and proclaiming the Kingdom of God," and drew applause for urging
curbs on abortion and gay marriage.

Richard Land, the Southern Baptists' chief lobbyist, said there's no
contradiction between celebrating internal victories and feeling embattled in
the larger culture.

"We have taken on the challenge of whether our denomination is gong to
be rooted in biblical values," said Land, who is president of the Ethics
and Religious Liberty Commission of the convention.

He said that while the Southern Baptists and some other Americans are
participating in a "rising tide of conservative evangelicalism," he
also saw a "rampant collapse of Judeo-Christian consensus" in society,
citing the gay-marriage movement and the large pornography industry in America.

That theme was reflected in a vote yesterday when the more than 8,000
Southern Baptist delegates approved a resolution committing themselves to
fighting "the cultural drift in our nation toward secularism."

At the same time, they rejected a more radical proposal from the floor that
would have encouraged parents to educate their students at home or in Christian
schools rather than in public schools.

ONE SPONSOR of that proposal, Houston attorney Bruce Shortt, called the
public school system "an aggressively anti-Christian institution" in
which religious teaching is forbidden and homosexual clubs are permitted.

Shortt and another sponsor originally had submitted a separate resolution
calling for a pullout of Christian children from public schools, but the
resolutions committee refused to bring that to the floor. That prompted Shortt
to make his proposal in the form of an amendment.

Calvin Wittman, chairman of the committee, persuaded the convention to reject
the proposal. He said the convention has in past years endorsed the right of
parents to find alternatives to public schools — and acknowledged that five of
the 10 people on his committee are members of families that home-school their
children.

But he said other parents have legitimate reasons for keep their children in
public schools, ranging from an inability to afford private schools to the need
for special-education services.

The measure marked one of the few areas of debate at a convention that
largely reflected a strong conservative consensus. Another came on Tuesday when
the denomination voted to end its century-long affiliation with the Baptist
World Alliance.

A denominational report contended that the alliance — a coalition of 211
Baptist denominations and unions on six continents — was becoming liberal and
tolerating homosexuality. Alliance officials denied those claims.

ONE CRITIC said that vote and the convention speeches had a common theme.

"The Southern Baptist Convention has emerged as the American religious
community's foremost anti-everything body," said Robert Parham, executive
director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, based in Nashville, Tenn., in a
telephone interview.

"The heated rhetoric against a secular culture suggests a body which is
retreating into a 19th-century culture castle opposed to everything it cannot
control within the castle walls," Parham said.

Land and others, however, maintained they were not retreating but rather
fighting to change culture.

In speeches throughout the convention, leaders and delegates celebrated the
25th anniversary of the start of a shift to the right in the convention.
Supporters call this movement the "conservative resurgence," while
opponents call it a "fundamentalist takeover."

How can we manifest peace on
earth if we do not include everyone (all races, all nations, all religions, both
sexes) in our vision of Peace?